Aug 27, 2014

News about Google’s next flagship smartphone has recently emerged online, thus confirming that the search giant did not can the Nexus project and plans to continue to add new products to the series.

The next Nexus smartphone to be released by Google is likely to be called X due to some issues with the Nexus 6 name that might infringe on Philip K. Dick’s intellectual property rights. For those unaware, Philip K. Dick’s novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” which was turned into a movie called “Blade Runner,” starring Harrison Ford, has some androids in it that are called Nexus 6 models. Nexus One, the first Android smartphone launched by Google in the Nexus series, was the device that started the debacle, as Isa Dick Hackett, daughter to Philip K. Dick, threatened to sue Google over the trademark. Fortunately, that did not happen but not because Google asked for permission, but because the owner of Philip K. Dick’s intellectual property did not think that she had a solid case. This is probably one of the main reasons Google decided to change the name of its Nexus smartphone just this time.

With that being said, the so-called Nexus X has already appeared at an online retailer, and it looks like it will be manufactured by Motorola indeed. The smartphone is listed under a different name, Motorola XT1100, but also has the Nexus X tag line as well. Two Nexus X variants have been spotted by Twitter user @Alex_Vainshtein on fnac’s website, which is not surprising for a device in the series. According to the listing, Nexus X 32GB should be available for purchase for only €420 ($555) outright, while the 64GB model has been priced at €450 ($595). Even if the pricing options is different in Google Play Store, the important thing is that fnac has also revealed some of the phone’s specs.

In this regard, Nexus X is expected to sport a 5.2-inch capacitive touchscreen display of unknown resolution, as well as an impressive 13-megapixel rear-facing camera. On the inside, the smartphone will be equipped with a powerful quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 processor, which will be clocked at 2.7GHz. No other details on the Nexus X’s hardware have been revealed, but it looks like the handset will ship with Android Lemon Meringue 5.0 operating system out of the box. This seems to be the name Google chose for the final version of Android L, which is now only available as a preview for developers. Nexus X is expected to be announced along with the new version of Android sometime this fall. Are you excited about Google’s new flagship Android smartphone?